“Hardly, my dear. Evangeline will handle arrangements with Princess Arianna; you will be going into Kingdom. I need you to visit the Isyle Witch and pick up a love potion.”
Rosa buzzed, and I knew another client needed time with the Fairy Godfather. I grabbed my purse and headed toward the door. “I’m on it.” No more screwups, no more mistakes, and definitely no more blessings.
KINGDOM ON MONDAY morning looked like the leftovers of a ticker-tape parade followed by a massive alcoholic bender. Morning sun didn’t do the magic facades much good. Smoke hung in the air as street sweepers burned off the confetti and crushed down the discarded wineglasses and a few drunks who picked the wrong gutter to sleep in. The rest of the world got to work, including me.
I was two streets over from Main, which was still in the “good” part of Kingdom. I wondered for a moment what stood in this spot on the low side. I discarded the thought like so much stale wine and went into the store. “Isyle Witch,” said the gold lettering on the door, and below it were all four pages of her binding accreditation. That’s legal speak for “may not transform into toad without consent (and probably payment).”
Now the outside is your standard magical facade, clean and pastel and shimmery, but step inside and the witch’s shop was like the aquarium section of the pet shop mixed with the heart of the Amazon. Tanks with fish, tanks with spiders, tanks with things that looked like a fish had a kid with a spider. The only thing missing was the cauldron, and that’s because a few years back most of the witches went to using slow cookers so they could watch soap operas and work spells at the same time.
“What brings the pretty to my home?” asked the witch. She was old. Nobody talked like that anymore. With witches, age brought more and more power, but I felt the Agency bracelet and took courage. I stepped up to the counter. The witch’s eyes were solid yellow, like the iris and pupil had been removed, and what remained was diseased.
She glanced around with those sightless eyes and gasped. “How dare you bring curse children with you into my home?”
For a moment I tried to figure out what she meant. It finally came to me. “I can’t afford daycare. They’re actually blessings, I think.”
“So little difference.” The witch laughed at me, a croaking, choking noise.
“I’ve come for a love potion.”
“Of course you have. With looks like that, and your age, I don’t blame you.”
I glared at her. “I’m twenty-four, and you just said I was pretty.”
“I got a better look.”
“Make the potion.” I won’t go into the ingredients—they weren’t rational, or reasonable. About the only thing that made any sense was the Valentine’s candy hearts (for flavoring, of course). Potions tasted like cheap scotch, or so I’d heard.
The witch held out her claw. “Pay and receive.”
I tapped the company card and it changed, becoming a vial like my own, but full. Always full. I turned it over and a tiny pile of Glitter swept out, funneled into a tornado that came to rest in the witch’s hand.
“You pay with hope that does not belong to you, child, buying a potion for someone else’s man.” She set down the flask.
I snatched it, ready to be gone. “Thanks.”
She held up her hand, crooked, with liver spots and long yellow nails. On the counter she placed a tiny flask. “The leftovers from my brew. It is time you had something of your own. Consider it a gift for the Queen’s handmaiden.”
“The term is agent. And he’s the Fairy Godfather these days.” I’m not stupid. Gifts in Kingdom were like snakes. They coiled up around you and struck, and Kingdom only knew what would happen. Gifts from witches were worse, but turning it down would be like turning down the blessing of the fae, certain to bring their wrath. I took the second flask and pocketed it. I had enough enemies already.
Grimm looked relieved when I got back to the Agency with both the potion and my skin intact. It’s not like I hadn’t given him reason to be worried lately. The thing is, even though I was technically a slave, he’d never treated me like one. He was always polite, and often proper, and on occasion kind. So I mostly trusted him.
“Excellent work, Marissa.”
I gave him a scowl for complimenting me on such a basic assignment. The potion I deposited in a safety box.
“I trust Kingdom is recovering from their weekend hangover?”
“You know it. The witch didn’t have a single other customer. Speaking of which,” I took the second flask out of my pocket, “you ever known a witch to have ‘leftover’ potion?” My fingers tingled, and I felt the urge to hide the flask someplace dark and safe.
Grimm took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Never. It would be like wasting Glitter.”
“She could see the blessings, Grimm.”
He nodded as if it weren’t important.
“Can you?”
“No, my dear. Now tell me, how much did the ‘extra’ flask cost you? I’ll buy it from you for double.”
That made no sense. Grimm held on to Glitter even tighter than he held on to money. “Double?” I asked, and he nodded.
“Marissa, I trust you, and your Glitter is yours to spend, but such potions are dangerous. Particularly for you.”
“She said it was a gift. Double nothing is still nothing.” My fingers cramped around the bottle, and it hurt to let go. My fingers felt like they were on fire as I thought of all the possibilities. A potion. One of my own, which would leave a man so taken with me he’d die before letting me go. I knew I should make a counteroffer. Triple my month’s pay, or more. Grimm looked like he wanted it bad, but the thought of giving it away made my stomach turn.
He looked at my hand, and I knew he had seen me clutch it. “Then it is yours, my dear. Tell me, can you even bring yourself to put it down, or have you already begun to imagine using it?”
I focused on my fingers, peeling them back one at a time, until the vial fell out of my hands and rolled on the desk. I held one hand in the other, resisting the urge to snatch the potion.
“May I offer to keep it safe for you?”
My stomach turned as I looked at the tiny flask, but in the revulsion I also felt desire to take it back. I knew what it held was magic, dangerously close to black magic, but part of me didn’t care. I was afraid of that part. “I don’t want to touch it again. The big one didn’t do that to me.”
“It wasn’t yours. Your desires make it that much stronger. I’ll have Rosa put it away. She has a husband and six children, so it won’t affect her the way it does you.”
“I didn’t want to make any more enemies.” I sat down in a chair and put my head down on his desk.
He shook his head. “A gift from a witch. You’re certainly not making any friends.”
Eleven
THE NEW PLAN came together quickly. This time, however, we’d work as a team—Evangeline and I—because potions were not to be trifled with. Grimm knew where Prince Mihail would be having lunch, and Ari herself would deliver the punch.
“I’m not ready for this,” said Ari, looking more than a little green.
“We’ll get you dressed when we get there. There are barf bags in the seat pockets,” said Evangeline. Given the way she drove, we often needed them.
“You do have the wine,” said Grimm, looking out from the rearview mirror. He was personally overseeing the operation this time around.
Evangeline patted a bag in the console beside her seat as she floored the accelerator and took another corner at near takeoff speeds. “Of course I do. Port, 1938, exactly as you ordered.”
“His favorite,” said Grimm. “Now, young lady, do you understand what you need to do?”